Ambient Animal Module

[december 0]

I have been making missions for a dedicated server and we have found on some missions hundreds of animals walking around when using the module.

Does anyone know if syncing the module or nor syncing the module with 1 player will have an effect on how many animals are created?

Cheers

[Kabolte 10]

It might work in the same way Ambient Combat Manager does, in that it creates animals around the group that it is synced to. Is that what you're asking?

[december 0]

Well, it looks like it will create animals even if the module is cynced or not cynced to a player.

We have noticed on some missions that there have bee hundreds of animals created, which will have a bad effect on the server obviously.

We were wondering if having the module cynced or not cynced to a player may be the cause of it.

[adlabs6 11]

I've been working with december on this issue. I didn't find any information on the 'animal' module so far.

Essentially, I've been putting the animals module on the map synced to nothing. When we play, we will sometimes see what seems a nice, sparse number of random animals. Other missions, there will be hundreds of animals of all types, in very large thick 'herds'. So many that it's ridiculous. All missions made the same way in regard to the animal module, so I don't know why the different results.

We've also noted that when those kinds of missions with too many animals are played, we get lots of network lag, sometimes severe.

Well, ultimately we wondered if we should be syncing the animal module to a playable unit to prevent this?

[[GLT] Legislator 66]

Hundreds of animals? What ArmA II version did you install? Latest 1.02 patch?

The animal module doesn't need to be synchronized to anyone. I noticed a lot of animals, but hundreds?

[december 0]

Hundreds may be a slight exaggeration but in 1 group of mixed animals, 30-40 were present with many groups encountered in the area where the mission took place.

Patched to 1.02

[adlabs6 11]

Along the eastern coast is where I have seen this at it's worst. I saw four to six 'herds' of 30 to 50 mixed animals each in one mission. One 'herd' standing directly on the main roadway, rather than on nearby grass area.

Since we know the module doesn't need to be synced, we will explore this issue further.

Thanks!

[Starlight 10]

Along the eastern coast is where I have seen this at it's worst. I saw four to six 'herds' of 30 to 50 mixed animals each in one mission. One 'herd' standing directly on the main roadway, rather than on nearby grass area.

Since we know the module doesn't need to be synced, we will explore this issue further.

Thanks!

Can you not reduce the density / population possibility with the probability slider in the module?

[december 0]

Do you mean the Probability of Presence? I would assume that it controls the probability of the animals being present not the amount. Worth looking into though.

[[GLT] Legislator 66]

Hundreds may be a slight exaggeration but in 1 group of mixed animals, 30-40 were present with many groups encountered in the area where the mission took place.

Patched to 1.02

That seems to be more likely. How many animal modules have you placed? How many players were present?

[december 0]

Just 1 module and up to 24 players.

[[GLT] Legislator 66]

I did some tests for myself on the dedicated server. I've spotted several groups of animals but not more than 20 or 30 in visible range. No heavy performance impacts encountered.

[december 0]

Thanks for your help Legislator. Did you test it on Dedi by yourself or did you have other players on the server?

[Junker 0]

It seems to activate everytime someone joins the mission making the animals double up - its like running a spawn script without the (!IsServer) command..

I think you need to find away to stop it from doing this during JIP..

[december 0]

Cheers Junker. That should be easy to test.

[xeno 230]

Junker is completely right. There's no server check done, so every client that connects will spawn animals too.

Now think about it if you play a 30 or more player mission :(

Xeno

[gnarly_rider 0]

We experienced major server slowdown when running our first ARMA2MP COOP mission, with multiple JIPs using many of the ambient modules. After extensive testing, it was deduced that the ambient modules (and this one in particular) where responsible: I watched cows propagating on the main airstrip over the corpses of the ones I'd already killed.....

[december 0]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I guess best just to place a few individual animals for now.

[jpinard 10]

For a singple player mission I'm creating, I'm placing a bunch of these ambient animal modules and seeing maybe 3 animals on all of Chernarus. Does this not work the same as it does if placing on an mp map?